Lol, Lol :-)) Anyway, I think his heart is in the right place. At least he admits to losing [unlike the rest of us].

I like the Ian Davies reply:

"First off, IMO, there are essentially two types of punter -

1. The guy who likes to ''Play God'' and say: ''this one will win so I'm backing it no matter what the price is, or ''this one will get beat so I'm laying it no matter what the price is.'' Colourful characters, but I never knew anyone with an MO like this who made a profit long-term.

2. The guy who attempts to define value by compiling his own tissue (something I think everyone should do at least once in their lives, if only as a one-off academic exercise). This could be to the usual bookies' margin of 1.5%-2% a runner, but more usually it is to 100%, or even 90% or lower - a backer's book.

Basically anything trading at more than its tissue price is a value bet and, the bigger the price is relation to the tissue, the bigger the BACK bet. Conversely, the shorter the price in relation to its tissue the bigger the LAY bet. However, there is a caveat to that and one which follows along the lines of making sure you don't be arrogant enough to ''Play God.''

Don't kid yourself you can perpetually outperform the efficiency of the market by much because if something looks too good to be true, that's because it usually is. It's a bit like what Sky Masterson's dad* told him in Damon Runyon's Guys And Dolls, but a more contemporary explanation comes courtesy of RHIG who, in the chatroom the other day, stated words to the effect that the betting market is so efficient that it's rare to be able to out analyze it by much.

For example (my example, not his), if you have a horse trained by, say, Mick Easterby on your tissue at 8/1 for some minor handicap, at some unconsidered night meeting during Royal Ascot week or something similar, and it opens at 6/1 and is punted into 7/2, it's probably not a good idea to lay the bollocks off it because you had it in at 8s on your purely academic tissue. Unless you're sleeping with the horse in question, there is always someone out there who knows more about its chances than you do, Don't ever forget that and always be prepared to amend your tissue if there's money - or a distinct lack of it - for horses from certain yards".